Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-19953 (referred to as “Patent Document 1”, hereinafter) discloses a technique for detecting a degradation of a solder bonding portion by simultaneously applying a life measuring pulse of about 10 micro millimeter second to IGBTs (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor) on upper and lower sides to cause a short circuit current to be generated.
However, according to an configuration disclosed in Patent Document 1, a circuit formed when the IGBTs on upper and lower sides are turned on simultaneously has a substantially low impedance, which may lead to a problem in that a substantially large short circuit current is generated instantaneously when the IGBTs on upper and lower sides are turned on simultaneously.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is provide a solder degradation information generation apparatus that can generate information indicating a degradation state of a solder without generating a short circuit current.